Overview

The Internet has evolved from the largely static Information super Highway of the 1990s to a critical infrastructure supporting all aspects of life in the 21st century. The European Commission is making significant investment in Future Internet research with the aim of ensuring European competitiveness in the face of globalization and emerging societal challenges. It is critical to ensure that the investment in ICT research contributes effectively to the European sustainability and welfare. The SESERV Support Action provides an approach for coordinating selected areas in socio-economics of FP7 projects to offer access to both socio-economic and technical experts in an integrated manner, while investigating the relationship between Future Internet technology, society and the economy.

The SESERV Coordination Action fills the gap between socio-economic priorities and the Future Internet research community by offering selected socio-economic services to FP7 projects in Challenge 1. SESERV will provide access to socio-economic experts investigating the relationship between Future Internet technology, society, and the economy through white papers, workshops, and research consultancy.

Activities and Targets

The SESERV’s goal is to maximize the impact of research by raising the awareness of socio-economic trends in the areas of incentives, accounting, Digital Europe, and risk management, and by addressing possible policy priorities within the research community across key dimensions of convergence for information technology, telecommunications and media.

The SESERV has the following major objectives to be pursued in support of the overall aim of advancing technology and socio-economic understanding:

• SESERV will initiate and lead the discussion with the community about socio-economic challenges and perspectives of the Future Internet, facilitating the support and collaboration of Future Internet-related economic facets and social facets.
• SESERV will organize two FIA sessions, two scientific workshops, and work package-driven working groups in support of those socio-economic facets.
• SESERV will disseminate and publish results that address the key interfaces between ICT and socio-economic areas of research.
• SESERV will exploit those results and will show impact by identifying paths and guiding respective activities for the integration of socio-economic aspects into the Future Internet.

Partners

This project is a partnership with the University of Zürich, University of Southampton, Athens University of Economics and Business; Alcatel Lucent Bell Labs, France; ATOS Origin, Spain. This initiative is supported by the European Seventh Framework Project FP7-2010-ICT-258138-CSA.